City of Chicago Landmark Designation Reports

LANDMARK DESIGNATION REPORT

Mundelein College
Skyscraper Building

1020 W. Sheridan Road

Preliminary Landmark receommendation approved by the Commission on Chicago
Landmarks, May 4, 2006

CITY OF CHICAGO
Richard M. Daley, Mayor

Department of Planning and Development
Lori T. Healey, Commissioner

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks, whose nine members are appointed by the Mayor, was
established in 1968 by city ordinance. The Commission is responsible for recommending to the City
Council which individual buildings, sites, objects, or districts should be designated as Chicago Land-
marks, which protects them by law.

The landmark designation process begins with a staff study and a preliminary' summary of
information related to the potential designation criteria. The next step is a preliminary vote by the
landmarks commission as to whether the proposed landmark is worthy of consideration. This vote not
only initiates the formal designation process, but it places the review of city permits for the property under
the jurisdiction of the Commission until a final landmark recommendation is acted on by the City Council.

This Landmark Designation Report is subject to possible revision and amendment during the
designation process. Only language contained within the designation ordinance adopted by the City
Council should be regarded as final.

Mundelein College
Skyscraper Building

(Now Mundelein Center, Loyola University Chicago)
1020 W. Sheridan Rd.

Built: 1930-31

Architects: Nairne W. Fisher & Joseph W. McCarthy

The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building is one of Chicago's most visually distinctive
educational buildings. Rising 14 stories above Chicago's Far North Side lakefront, the
Mundelein "skyscraper," as it has popularly been known since its completion in 1 93 1 , is one of
the City's finest neighborhood high-rise buildings . Designed in the Art Deco architectural style,
it has a distinctive setback form and geometric and abstracted foliate ornament typical of this
"modernistic" style. Located at Sheridan Road's prominent curve inward from the lakefront, it
remains a visual landmark for the Edgewater and Rogers Park neighborhoods.

The building was built to house Mundelein College, a Catholic woman's college newly-
established in the late 1920s at the urging of Cardinal George Mundelein, the Roman Catholic
archbishop of Chicago, who energetically encouraged the establishment and growth of Catholic-
run colleges and universities in the Chicago area during the 1 9 1 0s, 20s, and 30s. The college
represents a collaborative effort between Cardinal Mundelein and the Sisters of Charity of the
Blessed Virgin Mary (B. V.M.), who organized and ran the college. The B.V.M. sisters were in
need of higher education for their order, and they wanted to offer the same to lay women. The
building was the joint effort of Iowa architect Nairne W. Fisher, the architect selected by the
B.V.M. order, who was the designer of the building; and the Cardinal's favorite architect,
Chicagoan Joseph W. McCarthy, who supervised construction.

The Establishment of Mimdelein College

The founding of Mimdelein College in 1 930 and the construction of its visually striking
"skyscraper" building reflect the growing options for higher education that young American
women had by the early twentieth century. The earliest colleges in the United States, both
before and immediately after independence, were formed to educate young men. It was only in
the post-Civil War era that co-educational state universities were established under the Morrill
Land-Grant Act of 1 862. At roughly the same time, private colleges, beginning with Vassar
College in 1 865, began to be established specifically for the education of women.

As with secular or Protestant-run institutions of higher learning, nineteenth-century Roman
Catholic colleges had also been restricted to male students. By the beginning of the twentieth
century, however, Catholic women's colleges began to be established throughout the United
States to provide Catholic-oriented educations to young women. Early examples included
Notre Dame, a Baltimore secondary school that expanded its curriculum to include college
courses in 1 896, and Trinity College in Washington, D.C., the first Catholic institution formed
specifically for the higher education of women which opened in 1 900.

With the establishment of Catholic women's colleges in the early twentieth century, female
religious orders began to take on educational roles similar to those of male counterparts,
such as the Jesuits and Vincentians, the founders of Loyola University and DePaul
University respectively. One of these was the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin
Mary (B.V.M.), the founders of Mundelein College. The order had been founded by five
young women in Dublin, Ireland, in 1 83 1 . Within two years, the women relocated to
Philadelphia, where they taught school and formally established themselves as a religious
order. The newly-named Sisters of Charity of the B.V.M. relocated to Dubuque, Iowa,

Mundelein College Skyscraper

The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building is located on the campus of Loyola Univerity
on Sheridan Road and the lakefront in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

Top: The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building, constructed in 1930-31, was designed in
the Art Deco architectural style and possesses a distinctive setback form and geometric
ornament.

in 1 843, where they founded a women's boarding school, St. Mary's Academy (today
known as Clarke College).

Chicago's Catholic colleges and universities saw great growth in the first quarter of the twentieth
century. DePaul University, established in 1898, evolved from St. Vincent's Academy, founded
earlier in the Sheffield neighborhood as a preparatory school. Loyola University, which would
later share side-by-side campuses with Mundelein College, was founded in 1 870 as St. Ignatius
College by the Jesuit order. The first Catholic college for women in the Chicago area was
Rosary College, founded in 1 922 in the western suburb of River Forest.

In 1 9 1 6, Cardinal George Mundelein became archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Cardinal Mundelein was greatly interested in expanding opportunities for Catholic higher
education. He envisioned a "Catholic University of the West," formed from a coalition of
existing Chicago-area Catholic colleges and universities, plus new colleges for women.
The need for Catholic women's colleges was not only for the education of Catholic lay
women, but also for the training of members of religious orders, many of whom taught in
parochial schools.

In 1916, Cardinal Mundelein met with three B.V.M. sisters to discuss this issue. Mother
Mary Cecilia Dougherty, superior general of the order; Sister Mary Isabella Kane,
provincial superior for the Chicago area; and Sister Mary Lambertina Doran, principal of
St. Pius Elementary School on the City's West Side, proposed the creation of a "house of
studies" where sisters could make retreats and live while attending summer classes at
DePaul and Loyola. Mundelein not only approved of the idea but decided that it would
become one of the new women's colleges that would form his "Catholic University of the
West" and urged the B.V.M. order to finance the college.

Financial support was not forthcoming at that time, and plans for the college stalled.
Additionally, the establishment of Rosary College in 1922, by the Dominican order, satisfied for
a time a need for a Chicago-area Catholic women's college. The B.V.M. order instead
established Immaculata High School on Chicago's Far North Side in 1 922, and soon offered
extension courses through Loyola University.

Cardinal Mundelein continued to desire an additional women's college for Chicago,
however, and in 1 928 was actively working again with the B.V.M. sisters to establish such
an institution. From a conversation between Mundelein and Sister Isabella in April 1 928,
the mother superior's meeting notes described a high-rise, multi-purpose building for the
proposed college:

75 ft. frontage. Run up into the air. Cafeteria and Gym below (swimming pool) the
Classrooms above & the Sisters' quarters above the classrooms. Roof garden on top
screened in for Sisters - terraces round top Near elevated station easy access - not
necessarily far from Immaculata. If you keep to the center of the city you will attract the
girls in number of a 1000. Later on put up a dormitory building for out of town girls.
Decidedly a day school. It is the first women's college in the city. The time is ripe now for a
progressive Community like ours to make it the leading College in the city. It is a novel idea

Catholics Will Build
College for Women
Near Loyola Campus

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The founding of Mundelein College
represented a collaborative effort
between Cardinal George
Mundelein (top left) and Mother
Isabella Kane (top center) of the
Sisters of Charity of the B.V.M. Top
right: Chicago Daily Tribune article
announcing the project. Left: A
rendering of the "modern-style"
building by design architect Nairne
Fisher. Bottom: The
groundbreaking for the Mundelein
College Skyscraper Building took
place on November 1, 1929.

IT

"iff rR'IT life

Top left: A view of the Mundelein
College Skyscraper under con-
struction in 1930. Top right: The
building's two large-scale statues
(seen here before installation)
were designed by Charles Fisher
and carved in the studio of the
North Shore Stone Company.
Right: The formal dedication of
Mundelein College on June 3,
1921. Bottom: The Loyola Avenue
station of the "L" line seen in 1937.
Rapid transit provided access to
the college making it a popular
commuter school for students from
across the City.

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that will attract girls - It is the modern way of living. Why not have the expanse go up
instead of spreading. . .

The "run up into the air" may have been dictated by prudent land acquisition costs. Since
the order was carefully watching its limited financial resources, a skyscraper college
building would save on the amount of land needed.

Sister Isabella and Cardinal Mundelein considered a centrally- located site in the Loop to
take advantage of its excellent public transportation. Instead, the two agreed on a Far
North Side lakefront site adj acent to Loyola University, on the boundary between the
Rogers Park and Edgewater neighborhoods.

Originally a farming community in the mid nineteenth century, Rogers Park initially
developed as a small suburb connected to Chicago by the Chicago & North Western
Railway after the railline's construction in the 1 850s. Most of the community's early
development centered on either side of the railroad, located west of Clark Street, and
much of the lakefront still remained vacant in 1 893 when Rogers Park was annexed to
Chicago.

In 1 906, the Rogers Park neighborhood received an important institutional anchor when
the Jesuit order bought a large vacant tract of lakefront land east of Sheridan Road with
the intention of founding a preparatory school and college there. In 1 909, a year after the
Northwestern Elevated Railroad (now the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line) was
extended past the western edge of the property, Loyola Academy was opened on the
Jesuit-owned property. Then, in 1922, the main campus of St. Ignatius College, now
known as Loyola University, moved from its Near West Side home to the property.

Building Design, Construction and Description

In October 1928, the Immaculata and St. Mary's High School buildings were mortgaged
to secure a loan of $500,000 for the new Mundelein College building. By May 1 929,
two large lots facing Sheridan Road and just south of the Loyola University campus were
purchased.

Cardinal Mundelein's favored architect, Joseph McCarthy, had been working on a design
for Mundelein College's new building, and he submitted his first plans to Sister Isabella in
June 1 929. His first design was a fifteen-story, red-brick skyscraper with limestone trim
in a style reminiscent the Colonial Revival. The building's steel- frame structure supported
ten classroom floors topped by five floors of convent living quarters. Sister Isabella
rejected this initial design as too expensive. In the months that followed, two later
versions submitted by McCarthy were also rejected.

Meanwhile, Sister Isabella recruited Nairne W. Fisher, a Dubuque, Iowa, architect who
had previously done work for her, to become involved with the project. In August 1 929,

Top: An aerial view of Mundelein College seen shortly after its completion. The building is
situated on the southern edge of the present day Loyola University campus and is a distinc-
tive visual sight on the Far North lakeshore. The building retains a high degree of physical
integrity. A view of the building in 1940 (left) and as it appears today (right).

she named Fisher the design architect for the proj ect while designating McCarthy as the
supervising architect. McCarthy's involvement insured Cardinal Mundelein's ongoing
interest in the proj ect. Within a month, Fisher 's plans, which called for a high-rise building
in the "modern style," as it was then called, with vertical lines, numerous setbacks, and
low-relief stone sculpture, were approved.

While the Cardinal was interested in the establishment of the college, it was the B. V.M.
sisters who directed the work as well as secured the financing for the building. Sister
Isabella kept in close contact with Fisher while Sister Mary Justitia Coffey, who had
moved to Chicago to oversee to construction of the building, was in daily contact with the
general contractor, William Lynch. Groundbreaking took place on November 1 , 1 929,
which was the ninety-sixth anniversary of the founding of the B.V.M. order in the United
States.

The stock market crash of October 1 929 and the subsequent Depression did not stop
construction. The project was supported by donations from twenty-eight B.V.M. -run
schools in the Chicago area. Grade school children recall taking walks with their parents
to the lakeshore to watch the progress of "their" new college.

The building permit for the Mundelein College Skyscraper Building is dated January 8, 1 930,
and the owner is listed as the Charity Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The architect was
listed as J. W. McCarthy and the builder is the W. J. Lynch Company. The estimated cost was
$ 1 ,500,000. The final construction report, indicating completion of the building, was filed on
September 4, 193 1 , and it revised the building's cost to $2,500,000.

On September 1 , 1 930, the sisters moved into their nearly completed skyscraper and
two weeks later, on September 1 5, registration for classes began. Three hundred women
enrolled, a number which far exceeded expectations. Sister Mary Justitia, was appointed
as the college's first president. Nineteen academic departments offered instruction. The
first faculty consisted of religious and lay members. They were recruited from within the
B.V.M. ranks and also included six laywomen, five laymen and seven priests, six of them
Jesuits from Loyola University.

Building description

The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building is located at the southern edge of both the Rogers
Park community area and the present-day Loyola University Chicago campus. It faces
Sheridan Road at the point where the north-south street becomes an east- west street skirting
the southern edge of the Loyola campus, and is a visually dramatic presence for northbound
drivers on Sheridan Road.

The building is a 1 4-story steel-and concrete- frame building faced with gray Indiana
limestone and designed in the Art Deco architectural style. The building has a "setback"
form typical of Art Deco-style skyscrapers of the late 1 920s and early 30s, rising 1 98
feet and stepping back above the seventh and tenth floors. The building's floor plan is T-

shaped at ground level, then reduces to a simple rectangle at its roofline, which is capped
by a hip roof of metal. The rear low -rise section of the building houses space for a
gymnasium and swimming pool to the northwest and a large auditorium to the northeast.
The roof of this section originally was an open-air exercise deck.

Although only 1 4 floors, the building ' 'reads' ' like a much taller building due to its overall
form, visual sense of heightened verticality, and spare detail. The building's height and
setbacks were governed by the City's zoning ordinance, enacted in 1 923, which
encouraged taller buildings with setbacks. The building's main (south- facing) facade
emphasizes verticality by recessing the building's central section (which rises to the
building's tallest point) and through the use of narrow, slightly projecting vertical piers.

The building's exterior decorative features include two large-scale statues of Christian
archangels flanking the historic main entrance facing Sheridan Road. These statues' stylized
human forms evolve from cylindrical fluted columns at ground level to robed human forms and
visually dominate the building's main (south) facade. Designed by Charles Fisher, the architect's
brother, they were carved by the North Shore Stone Company. One statue, representing the
archangel Uriel, holds a cross-decorated book in her left hand while pointing skyward with her
right hand. She represents the poet John Milton's "sharpest-sighted spirit of all" who holds the
Book of Wisdom. The other statue, representing the archangel Jophiel, holds a celestial orb
topped by a cross in her right hand while raising a burning torch in her left. She represents the
beauty of God and guards the Tree of Knowledge in Eden; she holds the planet Earth in her
right hand, and lifts the torch of knowledge with her left. The statues' robes are incised with
geometric shapes, especially a spoked- wheel pattern.

Other exterior ornament is concentrated around doors, windows and roof parapets, and
includes both low-relief stone ornament and metal decoration in the Art Deco style. Building
entrance doors and transoms, as well as first-floor windows, are ornamented with boldly-
geometric, metal grillework decorated with a variety of zig-zags and interlocking squares and
rectangles. The transoms over the central door on the main (south) elevation, as well as the
door on the west elevation, have the initials "B VM" within a 1 6-pointed star. Below this is the
phrase "SicutLilium Interspinas" or "Find the lily among thorns." Decorative-metal lamps
shaped like set-back "skyscrapers" flank the west entrance, which is sheltered by an original
rounded-corner, Art Deco-style canopy. The building's east entrance is sheltered by a broad
loggia

Art Deco-style abstracted foliate and geometric ornament is carved or incised into window
surrounds and spandrels, as well as along setback parapets. Ornamental patterns include
swirls, coils, and floral motifs, the most significant of which is the lily, a long-standing symbol of
the Virgin Mary and the central motif in the B. V.M. order's insignia, which can also be seen
carved into the building's exterior.

The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building was conceived to be an all-purpose building for the
new college, housing a variety of public and private functions. It was built to contain
classrooms, offices, a large auditorium, dining rooms, a chapel, and recreation facilities such as a

10

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I

Above and left: Due to
its overall form, visual
sense of heightened
vertically, and its spare
detail, the building
appears to soar much
higher than its fourteen
stories. Bottom left: The
building is T-shaped in
its overall plan. Bottom
right: Its dramatic main
entry faces Sheridan
Road.

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11

The building's exterior decorative features include large-scale statues of Christian archan-
gels Jophiel (bottom left) and Uriel (bottom right). Additional ornament is concentrated
around the windows and roof parapet (top).

12

m$l l sgiga PB1BH

Art Deco-style abstracted
foliate and geometric orna-
ment is incised into spandrels
and featured in decorative
metal grillework.

13

gymnasium, swimming pool, and rooftop exercise deck. In addition, the B. V.M. sisters in charge
of the college had private living spaces on the ninth through fourteenth floors, with open-air
terraces atop setbacks at the eighth and eleventh floors.

The main (south) entrance leads to, first a rectangular vestibule, then a wide first-floor corridor at
right angles to the main entrance that connects the east and west building entrances. Both have
floors laid in a checkerboard pattern with tan and white marble from Alabama and Tennessee.
The vestibule walls are covered in pinkish-tan "Florida Rose" marble, while the main corridor
walls are surfaced with light tan "Botticino" marble accented with "Florida Rose" marble.
Baseboards in both spaces are gray "Tinos" marble. Bronze ceiling fixtures with elongated white
glass globes ornament both the vestibule and main corridor.

Opposite the main entrance is a grandly-scaled staircase connecting the building's first and second
floors. Boldly rectangular in design, the staircase is also faced with marble and consists of a twin
set of stairs rising to a common landing, then one set of stairs to the second floor. The staircase's
retaining walls are boldly stepped and decorated with triple metal bands, resulting in a visual effect
that recalls both Classical capitals and the building's exterior setbacks. The crest of the
Archbishop of Chicago is centered on the wall below the staircase's upper risers.

Many doors and entrances off the main first-floor corridor, as well as silver-finish metal bulletin
display cases, add to the building's overall Art Deco-style character. Elevators clustered to the
west of the main staircase have highly decorative, Art Deco-style doors of polished metal
ornamented with an incised V-shaped design of coils and chevrons framed by a border of triangles
and arcs. Art Deco-style clocks are situated above elevator doors. Doors to the "East Room"
and "Cardinal's Room," both social rooms on the first floor, have parquet inlays in diamond-
shaped geometric patterns. Other room entrances off the main corridor have Art Deco-style door
surrounds, with doors recessed within doorjambs with fluted sides. Decorative-metal grillework
can be found throughout the first-floor main corridor, including tall radiator screens perforated with
the building's stepped outline. A similar building outline motif is also repeated in doorknob plates.

Skyscrapers and the Art Deco Style

The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building is a distinctive example of an Art Deco-style
skyscraper, a building type and architectural style of importance to Chicago architectural history.
It also is an unusual Chicago skyscraper intended for educational purposes and exemplifies the
growing, yet still rare, interest in high-rise college buildings in the United States in the years
immediately prior to the Great Depression of the 1 93 Os.

By 1 930, as the Mundelein skyscraper was being built, high-rise buildings were increasingly
common in Chicago. The City's earliest skyscrapers, dating from the 1 880s and 90s, had been
commercial office buildings built in response to rising land values in Chicago 's Loop, hi the 1 9 1 0s
and 20s, high-rise apartment buildings also were being built in fashionable lakefront neighborhoods
such as the Gold Coast, Lincoln Park, Lake View, and Hyde Park. By 1930, there also were a

14

handful of high-rise office and bank buildings that marked maj or neighborhood commercial
intersections, including the West Town Bank Building at Madison and Western on Chicago's
West Side (designated a Chicago Landmark) or the Northwest Tower at the six-corners
intersection of Milwaukee, Damen and North on the Northwest Side.

But high-rise buildings built for educational purposes were rare in the United States; and almost
non-existent in Chicago before the construction of the Mundelein skyscraper. Colleges and
universities traditionally had cultivated a more small-town, ' 'Village in a Garden' ' setting, with
low-rise buildings centered on open areas such as quadrangles. But advances in building
technology, including high-speed elevators, combined with rising land values in large cities made
high-rise college buildings more attractive.

As he worked on the Mundelein design, architect Nairne Fisher had before him a few existing
or under-construction examples of college skyscrapers. In Chicago, the Montgomery Ward
Memorial Building, built for Northwestern University's Near North Side campus, was called the
"nation's first Collegiate Gothic skyscraper" upon its completion in 1 926. Its architect, James
Gamble Rogers, had faced a similar program constraint, that of a limited urban site, as did
Fisher.

Also, in August 1 929, as Fisher was working on the Mundelein skyscraper, Mother Isabella
sent him to view two skyscraper college buildings elsewhere in the United States. He visited the
"Cathedral of Learning'' at the University of Pittsburgh, still under construction after being
started in 1 926. Designed by architect Charles Z. Klauder, it was a 42-story, steel-frame
structure clad with Indiana limestone and designed in a modernized Gothic Revival style with
setbacks. The other building that Fisher visited was a new 1 3-story building for St. John's
College of Accounting, Commerce and Finance in New York, completed in 1929. This building
had a simple rectangular form divided into the tripartite sections common to commercial
skyscrapers and with Gothic Revival-style details.

Despite these existing examples, Fisher chose to build the Mundelein College Skyscraper
Building in the then-fashionable "modernistic" style of Art Deco, rather than the more traditional
Gothic Revival style. The style was named after the Exposition des Art Decoratifs, a world's
fair held in Paris in 1 925 that emphasized highly decorative modem architectural and decorative
styles.

Many architects in the late 1 920s were in search of a new "modem" style, and Art Deco
developed as a non-historic, yet decorative architectural style that expressed through its forms
and ornament a striking sense of modernity. The design of Art Deco-style buildings such as the
Mundelein skyscraper utilizes hard-edged, linear fomis with an emphasis on verticality.
Setbacks often are used to emphasize both a building's geometric form and height. Projecting
piers and recessed windows with decorated spandrels or surrounds add to an Art Deco-style
building's sense of vertical composition.

Art Deco ornament was stylized in a variety of hard-edged geometric and abstracted foliate
designs, usually found around entrances, windows, and roof parapets. Although the movement

15

The building's entry vestibule (top left),
main corridor, and grand staircase
(bottom left) add to the building's overall
Art Deco character. These spaces feature
many decorative elements such as metal
grillework (bottom right), display cases
(left), and light fixtures (top right).

DULLETIM/

16

is not overtly based on historic precedent, there are numerous influences for its decoration. Art
Deco-style details such as stylized flowers, sunbursts, chevrons, coiling shells, and wave- like
patterns have origins as exotic as Egypt and the Orient. Many Art Deco-style buildings also
utilized simplified, abstracted Classical ornament, and the style was sometimes called "Modern
Classicism." Considered a "modern" or "modernistic" style in the late 1920s and early 1 930s,
Art Deco was preferred by Americans over the more austere International Style developed by
avant-garde architects in Europe during the period.

American architects who designed skyscrapers in the early 20 th century were confronted
with the challenge of designing a tall building without denying its innate verticality By the
mid- 1 920s most historic revival styles had been considered, including the Classical and
Gothic Revivals. As an architectural style without historic ties to low-rise building types,
Art Deco was readily adapted to skyscraper design. Art Deco building forms emphasize
soaring vertical masses with crisply defined corners and setbacks, while ornamentation
was sleekly modern and easily produced in terra cotta, stone, and decorative metals.

In Chicago, Art Deco-style skyscrapers were commonly built in the late 1 920s and early
1 930s. Those comparable to the Mundelein College Skyscraper Building in their general
overall form, sense of verticality, use of gray limestone cladding, and stylized ornament
include the Palmolive Building at 919 N. Michigan (1927-29, Holabird & Root), the
Chicago Board of Trade Building at 141 W. Jackson (1930, Holabird & Root), and the
West Town Bank Building at Western and Madison ( 1 929-30, Mundie & Jensen). All
three are designated Chicago Landmarks.

Architects Nairne Fisher and Joseph McCarthy

Nairne W. Fisher (1 899-1 980) served during World War I and then studied architecture
briefly at the Ecole des Beaux- Arts in Paris. Following his return, he opened offices first in St.
Cloud, Minnesota, then in Dubuque, Iowa. He worked with Mother Isabella on the buildings
for Clarke College in Dubuque, including the remodeling of the B.V.M. motherhouse. In
association with her, he also designed several parochial schools, including the Holy Angels
Academy in Milwaukee, built in 1 928 in a restrained Art Deco style. In collaboration with
architect John Marshall, Fisher also designed the Central High School in Grand Forks, North
Dakota, in 1936. Now known as the Central Middle School, it also is Art Deco in style.

Joseph William McCarthy (1884-1965) was the most prolific Chicago designer of buildings
for the Roman Catholic Church in the early twentieth century. He was born in Jersey City, New
Jersey, and Ms parents moved to Chicago while McCarthy was a teenager. He attended the
parish high school of St. Gabriel's on the South Side and then entered the firm of Daniel
Burnham. He opened his own office in 1 9 1 1 .

His first commission was for Corpus Christi Church at 49 th St. and Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.
for the Archdiocese of Chicago, and it became one of the first consecrated by Cardinal
Mundelein in 1 9 1 6 after he took office. Mundelein preferred to make all final decisions on the

17

Art Deco-style skyscrapers were built in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Some examples
include: the Palmolive Building (top right), the Chicago Board of Trade Building (top left)
and the Mundelein College Skyscraper Building (bottom).

selection of architects and designs for Archdiocesan building projects himself, and McCarthy
became his favorite architect. He completed twenty-eight churches for the Archdiocese of
Chicago between 1916 and 1 945 . These include St. Thomas of Cantebury Church at 48 1 5 N.
Kenmore Ave., St. Sabina Church at 7821 S. Throop Ave., St. Basil Church at 1840 W.
Garfield Blvd., St. Philip Neri Church at 2126 E. 72 nd St., and Queen of Angels Church at
2334 W.Sunnyside Ave.

One of McCarthy's largest commissions was the design of Cardinal Mundelein's most
important project, the new St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in suburban Lake County.
Mundelein himself selected a New England-based Colonial Revival style for the sprawling
complex of classrooms and residential buildings. McCarthy later repeated this so-called
"Mundelein Colonial" style in at least six other churches in the Chicago archdiocese.

Later Years

Upon its completion, and as the college's only building for several years, the Mundelein
College Skyscraper Building was the focus of college life. College traditions were
quickly established incorporating the building, including a monthly college newspaper,
The Skyscraper, and a yearbook, The Tower. The first Christmas in the new building
established a candle- lighting tradition, hi their book, Mundelein Voices: The Women's
College Experience, editors Ann Harrington and Prudence Moylan cite a former
alumnae:

With the building in total darkness, candles gleaming in the windows formed a fourteen-
story cross of lights. Sheridan Road traffic slowed to savor the richness, students
huddled outside in the cold to view their own creation, and the next morning over
breakfast, Chicagoans read about it in their newspapers.

In subsequent decades, Mundelein College expanded its offerings and its real-estate
holdings. Two adjacent properties to the east were purchased. One was a red-brick
mansion which became a residence hall (now demolished). The other was the distinctive
stone residence of engineer Albert Wheeler, built in 1909, which became the library.
(The Wheeler House is now known as Piper Hall and is part of the Loyola University
Campus.)

During World War II, the student body devoted many extracurricular activities to the war
effort. Proceeds from student events were invested in war bonds. Mundelein College
became a training center for women recruits to military service. The first Midwest
college unit of the American Red Cross was started at Mundelein. In 1945, when Sister
Justitia retired as president, the college was fully accredited with an enrollment of 900
students, hi the late 1 940s, the quarterly literary magazine, The Review, and The
Skyscraper won awards from the Associated Collegiate press. During the college's 25 th
anniversary, Mayor Richard J. Daley joined Cardinal Stritch in paying tribute to the
contributions of the B.V.M. sisters to the life of Chicago. By this time, half of the student
enrollment was enrolled in teacher education.

19

The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building is significant as an important building for
Roman Catholic higher education in Chicago for more than 70 years, first as the head-
quarters for Mundelein College, then as an important building owned by Loyola Univer-
sity Chicago. Top right: Mundelein students going to classes in the 1950s. Top right and
bottom: The building, now known as the Mundelein Center, as it appears today.

20

Under the leadership of Sister Ann Ida Gannon, who became president in 1 957, the college
entered a period of tremendous growth. In the 1 960s it was the largest Catholic women's
college in the United States. Anew dormitory, Coffey Hall, was built in 1961, and the college
purchased additional properties near the original skyscraper building. Mundelein's curriculum
combined the classical arts and sciences with the practical arts of business and home economics
while stressing traditional respect for clergy, personal piety and social action. By its Golden
Jubilee in 1980, the college had approximately 8,600 alumni.

In 1 99 1 , Mundelein College, faced with enrollment and financial issues, agreed to a merger with
Loyola University Chicago, and the Mundelein College Skyscraper Building became part of the
Loyola University campus. Today, Loyola University Chicago is the largest institution and
employer in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building remains an important visual "landmark" for the
thousands of Chicagoans that pass by the building on Sheridan Road daily. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1 980 and is color-coded "red," the highest rating, in the
Chicago Historic Resources Survey. As of May 2006, the building is being rehabilitated by
Loyola University Chicago.

Criteria for Designation

According to the Municipal Code of Chicago (Sect. 2-120-620 and -630), the Commission on
Chicago Landmarks has the authority to make a preliminary recommendation of landmark
designation for a building, structure, object, or district if the Commission determines it meets
two or more of the stated "criteria for landmark designation," as well as possesses a significant
degree of its historic design integrity.

The following should be considered by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks in determining
whether to recommend that the Mundelein College Skyscraper Building be designated as a
Chicago Landmark.

Criterion 1: Critical Part of the City's History

Its value as an example of the architectural, cultural, economic, historic, social, or other
aspect of the heritage of the City of Chicago, State of Illinois or the United States.

• The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building remains the historic building that best
exemplifies the importance of Mundelein College as an important educational institution in
Chicago's history.

• The building is significant as an important building for Roman Catholic higher education in
Chicago for more than 70 years, first as the headquarters for Mundelein College, then as an
important building owned by Loyola University Chicago.

21

Criterion 4: Significant Architecture

Its exemplification of an architectural type or style distinguished by innovation, rarity,
uniqueness, or overall quality of design, detail, materials, or craftsmanship.

• The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building is one of the earliest and most distinctive high-
rise college buildings in Chicago, and is the only Chicago example of an Art Deco-style
skyscraper used for an educational institution.

• The building is an outstanding example of the Art Deco style as used for a high-rise building,
with a building form that emphasizes verticality and crisply delineated cubic forms combined
with non-historic ornamentation.

• The building's decoration is finely designed and crafted from stone and decorative metal,
and includes exterior figural sculptures and bands of low-relief geometric and abstracted
foliate ornament carved from limestone; interior marble floors and walls; and decorative-
metal exterior and interior grillework, elevator doors, and light fixtures.

Criterion 7: Unique Visual Feature

Its unique location or distinctive physical appearance or presence representing an
established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood, community, or the City of
Chicago.

• The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building, situated on the southern edge of the Loyola
University Chicago campus at a visually prominent curve in Sheridan Rd., is a noteworthy
visual "landmark" for thousands of Chicagogans driving past the building daily.

Integrity Criteria

The integrity of the proposed landmark must be preserved in light of its location, design,
setting, materials, workmanship and ability to express its historic community, architecture
or aesthetic interest or value.

The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building displays excellent physical integrity and today its
exterior and first-floor vestibule and main corridor stand almost unchanged from their original
1 93 1 appearance. The building retains its historic site and relationship to the surrounding
Rogers Park and Edgewater community areas, as well as its historic overall exterior design,
building materials, and most detailing. The interior also retains historic integrity, including the
building's first-floor entrance vestibule, main corridor, and central staircase with its decorative
stone, metal and wood finishes.

Exterior alterations include ramps for accessibility added to the east side of the building, hi
addition, most original windows have been replaced with newer windows that replicate with
their double-hung, metal sash the building's original windows.

22

Significant Historical

and Architectural Features

Whenever a building, structure, object, or district is under consideration for landmark
designation, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks is required to identify the "significant
historical and architectural features" of the property. This is done to enable the owners and the
public to understand which elements are considered most important to preserve the historical
and architectural character of the proposed landmark.

Based upon its preliminary evaluation of the Mundelein College Skyscraper Building, the
Commission staff recommends that the significant features be identified as:

• All exterior elevations, including rooflines, of the building

• The first-floor entrance vestibule, main corridor, central staircase up to the second-floor
landing, and historic fixtures and finishes, including, but not necessarily limited to, marble
floors and walls, light fixtures, elevator and corridor doors, and decorative grilles.

Selected Bibliography

Chase, Cornelius Thurston. Catholic Higher Education. Hartford School of Religious

Education at Hartford Seminary Foundation: thesis, 1 938.
Blumenson, John J.G. Identifying American Architecture: A Pictorial Guide to Styles and

Terms, 1600-1945. Nashville: AASLH, 1977.
Cameron, Robert. Above Chicago. San Francisco: Cameron and Company, 1992.
Capitman, Barbara, Michae D. Kinerk, and Dennis W. Wilhelm. Rediscovering Art Deco

U.S.A. : A Nationwide Tour of Art Deco Delights. New York: Viking Studio Books,

1994.
Harrington, Ann M. and Prudence Moylan, editors. Mundelein Voices: the Women s College

Experience, 1930-1991. Chicago: Loyola Press, 2001.
Hunt, Thomas C. and James C. Carper. Religious Higher Education in the United States .

New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996.
Jencks, Christopher and David Riesman. The Academic Revolution. Garden City, NY:

Doubleday& Company, Inc., 1968.
Kantowicz, Edward R. "To Build the Catholic City." Chicago History. Vol. XIV, No. 3,

Fall, 1985, pp. 4-27.
Lifka, Mary Lauranne. "The Mundelein College Skyscraper Building," National Register of

Historic Places nomination, 1 979.

. Mundelein College. Chicago: Mundelein College, 1991.

Pacyga, Dominic A. and Ellen Skerrett. Chicago: City of Neighborhoods . Chicago: Loyola

University Press, 1986.
Sinkevitch, Alice, editor. AIA Guide to Chicago. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1993.

CITY OF CHICAGO

Richard M. Daley, Mayor

Department of Planning and Development

Lori T. Healey, Commissioner

Brian Goeken, Deputy Commissioner for Landmarks

Project Staff

Linda Peters (consultant), research, writing, and photography

Heidi Sperry, research and layout

Terry Tatum, writing, editing and photography

Special thanks to the staff of the Mundelein College Records, Women and Leadership Archives,
Loyola University Chicago.

Illustrations

Terry Tatum, pp. 3, 8 (bottom right), 11, 12, 13, 1 6 (top right and left, center, & bottom left), 18 (bottom), and

20 (top right).
From Harrington and Moylan, Mundelein Voices: pp. 5 (top center) and 6 (center).
Chicago Daily Tribune: pp. 5 (top right) and 8 (top).

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Name_Cathedral,_Chicago): p. 5 (top left).
From Mundelein College Records, Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University Chicago: pp. 5

(center and bottom), 6 (top left and right), and 8 (bottom left).
FromPacyga and Skerrett, Chicago: City of Neighborhoods: p. 6 (bottom).
Linda Peters: p. 16 (bottom right).

Commission on Chicago Landmarks: p. 1 8 (top left and right).
From Mundelein College: p. 20 (top left).
From Cameron, Above Chicago: p. 20 (bottom).

COMMISSION ON CHICAGO LANDMARKS

David Mosena, Chairman
John W. Baird, Secretary
Phyllis Ellin
Lori T. Healey
Seymour Persky
Ben Weese
Lisa Willis

The Commission is staffed by the

Chicago Department of Planning and Development

33 N. LaSsalle Street, Suite 1600, Chicago, IL 60602

3 1 2-744-3200; 744-2958 (TTY)
http://www.cityofchicago.org/landmarks

Printed May 2006; Reprinted September 2006.